Who will history be kind to?

When the history of the 214th Legislature is written, the narrative will be dominated by three events:

1.Enactment of ground breaking legislation to require more than a half million state, county, municipal and school district employees to contribute a greater percentage of their salaries to their pension plans and assume a larger share of the cost of their health insurance premiums.

2. New Jersey Network slowly fading to black, ending a 40-year broadcast history as the only statewide television outlet devoted exclusively to coverage of New Jersey issues, government and public affairs programming.

3.The bitter and very public implosion of the Democratic majorities in the Senate and Assembly in a dispute over the aforementioned pension/health care proposals.

It will also be remembered for one of the most sweeping uses of the Governor’s line item veto power to not only cut $900 million in spending from the budget, but to eliminate specific, detailed language directing how the money would be spent. Democrats, aware they lack the votes necessary to override the vetoes, made no secret of their intention to use the Governor’s actions as campaign fodder, zeroing in on the removal of hundreds of millions in state aid to school districts and municipalities, tuition aid grants, medical coverage for the poor and children, and numerous social safety net programs.

Immediately touted as the signature accomplishment of the Christie Administration, the pension/health care legislation exposed deep fractures in the Democratic Party, putting it at odds with organized labor, long a stalwart part of the party’s base.

Public employee union leaders --- local and national --- denounced the legislation as ideologically-driven union busting and vowed political retribution against those Democrats who supported it, including Senate President Steve Sweeney who led the effort to secure its passage.

Union leaders complained angrily that public employees were being scapegoated for the precarious condition of the pension system when the fault clearly lay with the failure of successive administrations to make required contributions in 17 of the last 20 years.

While Christie and Sweeney readily acknowledged past irresponsibility, both said with the system’s unfunded liability at some $150 billion, inaction would lead to collapse and leave current employees and retirees without benefits. Their goal, they maintained, was not to punish workers, but to save the system for them.

A handful of Democratic Senators and Assembly members from Essex, Hudson and Camden counties joined with the unified minority Republicans in both houses to deliver a major victory to Christie who characterized the legislation as a critical element in his agenda to control property taxes, supplemented by a cap on local tax increases and salaries.

Sweeney endured weeks of criticism and accusations that he had betrayed his party and the labor community by working with a Republican Governor to strike a death blow to the collective bargaining process. Sources in the party caucus weren’t shy about relating to reporters tales of heated arguments and thinly-veiled threats of challenges to Sweeney’s leadership in the 2012 session.

In the end, support from legislators aligned with Essex County Executive Joe DiVincenzo and Newark political power Steve Adubato and those aligned with South Jersey power broker George Norcross overcame union opposition, producing additional news accounts suggesting the Governor had reached accommodations with the three leaders to support his legislative program.

To say the least, the pension/health care legislation created political alliances and temporary coalitions not often seen in a partisan divided government.

The transfer of New Jersey Network to WNET, the public broadcasting station in New York, was nearly unexpectedly thwarted at the eleventh hour when the Assembly passed a resolution disapproving the sale and the Senate came within one vote of blocking the move.

Once again, it was the handful of Senators from Essex and Hudson counties who joined with minority party Republicans to head off the effort to provide a six month reprieve to NJN and use the time to determine if a more attractive offer could be developed. While serious questions were raised about the state’s potential financial liability if WNET was unable to meet its funding levels, criticism was directed also at the considerable involvement of Steve Adubato Jr. with WNET which opponents charged raised suspicions of an inside political deal.
While the agreement with WNET requires it to provide 20 hours of New Jersey based programming each week, there is considerable and understandable skepticism that nightly news reports as well as public affairs shows will survive in anything resembling the form NJN viewers have grown accustomed to.

Whether the divisions in the Democratic Party brought about by the bruising fight over pension and health care reform will linger and whether organized labor will exact revenge on those who supported the package remains to be seen. Party leaders do not anticipate labor will support Republicans in the Fall, but there remains concern that the anger could lead to reduced financial support and less than enthusiastic voter turnout, both of which could make a difference in the handful of closely-contested legislative districts.

There has, in fact, been some speculation that organized labor will flex its muscles after the election and --- should the Democrats maintain control of both houses --- mobilize its forces to replace both Sweeney and Assembly Speaker Sheila Oliver.

The consensus is that Christie emerged from the legislative session a clear winner, dominating the political debate and imposing his will on the Legislature through a relentless public relations drive and --- just as importantly --- demonstrating a willingness to back off some of his demands and reach compromises to achieve his goals.

Now that he has secured approval of the major elements of his property tax relief agenda, it is critical to his future that taxpayers see tangible benefits, either in the form of reduced or stabilized property taxes, that he promised would occur in 2012.

In 1945, as he prepared to leave office as Prime Minister of Great Britain, Winston Churchill was asked how he thought he’d be treated by history.

“History will be very kind to me,” he replied, “because I intend to write it.”
Given the current disarray of the Democratic Party and the potential for achieving long sought after property tax relief, it appears at the moment at least that Christie has the inside track on following that Churchillian theory.

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Carl Golden is a senior contributing analyst with the William J. Hughes Center for Public Policy at Richard Stockton College.